♪ >> i think every first lady should do something in this tradition to help the thing that she cares about. i just think that everything in the white house should be the best. the entertainment that is given here. children are the same the world over and so is our feeling for children. i think it is good in the world, there is quite enough to divide people, so we should cherish the language and the emotion that unites us. >> jacqueline kennedy's 1000 days as first lady was defined images -- political spouse, young mother, fashion icon, advocate for the arts. it was ultimately the tragic images of president kennedy's assassination and funeral that cemented jacqueline kennedy in the public consciousness.

welcome to c-span's "first ladies, influence and image." tonight we tell you the story of jacqueline kennedy. we have two guests at the next table -- at the table to tell you more. a presidential historian and author of many books on the presidency, with a special focus on the cold war era and kennedy administration. is a uva political scientist and as part of the modern first ladies serious she has written a jacqueline kennedy biography. i want to start, before we get into details on the white house years, with the assassination and the imagery of the assassination. anyone who was alive at that time has those images in their mind. subsequently, because of the power of the internet, we were talking before about the collective consciousness. people have experienced this since it happened. she was just 34 years old. >> just 34 years old. from the moment at dallas, we

know so much about the story. you forget he was shot into her arms. for five minutes they were there and she felt that they left the hospital to go back to washington, but they had to do something to make sure that he had the historical reputation. that he deserved but would not be there to fight for. >> what sense would a 34-year- old woman half of that experience? what did she draw from? this funeral with so many iconic images together in such a short time. >> she said when she was young woman, my ambition in life is to be the art director of the 20th century. oddly enough, she almost turned out to be that, at least for the kennedy administration. and she felt one thing that would be important for his legacy, as horrible as dallas was, to wipe out the view of

that and restore the american people's dignity by having three or four days of ceremony she helped they would render rather than the tawdryness of what happened. >> this is not the first presidential assassination and presidential widow. but it is the first one in the television age. as a political scientist you talk about the power of television, how did this work in this case? >> for the funeral, she know she wanted to go back to the rites for abraham lincoln, our first assassinated president. she asked her brother-in-law and the president's various friends and aides to find books on the link funeral, and they did. all of this played out on television. i would like to point out that when eisenhower was elected in 19 -- 1952, 20% of american households had television sets. i 196390% to 95% had televisions.

sitting in our family living room on that night of november 22, 1963 and saying mrs. kennedy walk out of air force one, behind her husband's casket. i remember my parents and older brother gasping at seeing her. >> we now know that what she was saying to people, lady bird johnson says, let me get someone to help you change your clothes. people tono, i want see what they have done to john. >> understanding the power of the imagery. we have two hours for your questions and comments and video clips and audio clips. the story of jacqueline kennedy. what has made the series is so interesting is the questions you ask. we would like to encourage you to take part again tonight. tweet us,eak us -- you can postdate comment on our facebook page, and you can also call us. our numbers are --

mountan/pacific -- we will get to your calls in just a bit. i would like to start with a phone conversation with president johnson. i will ask you to explain about the phone conversation and why we have them before we listen. what did he do in the white house? telephoned his conversations. with johnson, 650 hours over five years. casesed people in most without their knowledge, including jacqueline kennedy. at that point she had a very good relationship with lbj. but she would not have been too happy to know he was having this call taped. >> this is the phone conversation was just 10 days after the death of her husband. this is a phone conversation with lyndon johnson. >> the first thing you got to

learn, you got some things to learn. >> i wasn't going to send you in. putou just come over and your arm around me, that's all you do. we haven't got anything else to do, let's take a walk. walk around the backyard. let me tell you how much you mean to all of us, and how we can carry on. >> you know what i want to say about that letter? i know how rare a letter risen the president's handwriting. you know i have more of your handwriting than i do object's -- of jack's now, and for you to send me that thing today, the announcement and everything -- >> i want you to know i told my mother a long time ago, when everybody else gave up about my election in 1948, my mother and you havend my sisters,

a lot of courage we men don't have. we have to rely and depend on you. you got something to do. you have the president relying on you, and this is not the first time. many women running around -- you have the biggest job of your life. >> ran around with two presidents. that is what they will say with -- about me. ok, anytime. thank you for calling, mr. president. goodbye. >> do come by. >> i will. relationship between lbj and president kennedy was not always the easiest relationship. but after his assassination, how did he treat the departing first family and jackie kennedy? >> very well and mrs. kennedy talked about how grateful she was for president johnson. though it sometimes caught in her throat to have to say president johnson. unlike the president's mother, who when she was called a couple hours after the assassination by air force one slipped into

calling him is to president. he is very grateful to both mrs. johnson -- she was very grateful to mrs. johnson and president johnson that they were so gracious to her and let her stay in the white house until december 6. she was able to stay there with her children until she got the sense of where she was going to go. she had no home to go to. in the carnage in dallas, she lost her husband, her home and her job. she literally had no place to go until the home was opened to her in georgetown. caroline was going to nursery school and kindergarten. she was very grateful to the president for that. >> you have listened to a lot of jacqueline kennedy indicates project. control ofso in herself, 10 days after the assassination and going to the funeral, help us understand her and her psyche. often,would find that is

someone who was lost a spouse or someone very close to them, during the days of the funeral and the ceremony, she said, just keep on moving right now, we can all collapse later. there were a net decisions she had to make -- where to live, about the presidential library, trying to make sure her children were in as normal of an environment as possible. you cannot think of anything more abnormal than, the children lost their father this way. and once she got to georgetown she did almost collapse. this was late december and the beginning of spring. she went through a terrible depression. quite understandably. before then, you couldn't ask for more than she did in terms of keeping the situation forever -- together. >> in the days before the trip to dallas, what was the popularity of the kennedy administration and mrs. kennedy? >> the president had suffered

because of civil rights. >> by 20 points. >> he had fallen in the southern states, so he was concerned. he was going to texas to try to connect -- cements the party there and raise money for the 1964 campaign. this was really the kickoff for the 1964 presidential reelection campaign. gallup does not take regular polls about the first lady at the time. but early on, 1961, she was polling at about 59%. -- in2, gallup did take 1940 they started the most admired woman paul -- poll. she finally supplanted eleanor roosevelt, who had been number one for 12 years. mrs. kennedy was for five or six more years after that. she was riding high. remember, they lost their baby

patrick in august of 1963, so people felt particularly kindly toward her. >> there is also an irony. when john kennedy was planning his campaign in 1960, he once made an offhand remark, we will have to run jackie through subliminally. he meant that jackie had been but shen an elite way, might not be too politically helpful. and there was no one who was more astounded and delighted that she had turned out this -- into this vast political asset. when jfk was planning the trip to texas, john conley and the others in texas said, you have to bring mrs. kennedy. she is so popular and you will have much bigger crowds. as indeed he did. >> john kennedy was much more wealthy than she. so why would the public not react to his wealth in the way he was concerned with her? >> he felt there are many -- as

many political leaders that come from affluence to, he gave the impression that he was a guy from the navy. in 1957 she bought him a jag wire as a birthday gift. he had it returned and traded it in for review at -- a buick. he felt she was not someone who had much political experience. >> she talked in the oral history about how she felt she was a drag on him in the early days. >> she said, i'm sorry i'm such a drag for you. >> before we get into more detail on the 1960 campaign, i would like to understand the creation of the imagery of camelot. how did that come about? >> jackie kennedy asked teddy friend, writing for "life" magazine, to come to

hyannisport and interview her. -- pressers were held for this. she said, late at night, before were in the white house, we used to play the record of "camelot" in the player. needless to say, the editors and life thought, this would be the big theme. they urged him to make camelot the major theme. what came out, the kennedy presidency, camelot made its debut. in the end, she may not have been doing, it may not have been something that helped. years were all knights and great noble deeds was almost setting him up for the revisionist history in the 1970's that did happen. >> she must have known these would come along and she could

get out in front of them with this wonderful, signing moment. one brief, shining moment. there was a dark side of camelot, but it certainly was brief. all you have to do is look at the imagery to see they were a shining couple with two beguiling, shining children. >> we will spend some time on the campaign that brought the kennedy's to the white house. we will be visiting the jfk library. we will do that throughout our program tonight. theearn more role -- on role of helping out her husband during the campaign. >> mrs. kennedy spoke in rate length about president kennedy and his love of reading, his belief in the power of words. that is something that is a believe they both shared. what i like about this story here, it shows an example of the great belief in the power of words. a great example of collaboration

between husband and wife. this is early in the presidential campaign and in the early days, mrs. kennedy did travel with him as much as possible, and this is a reading copy of the speech he presented in washington state in june of 1959. mrs. kennedy was with him at that dinner, president kennedy had speechwriters and he would often rewrite his speeches up until the moment he was about to deliver it, and at this dinner, he wanted to close the speech "ulysses." he asked, give me the last lines from ulysses. following in mrs. kennedy's hand is the rest of the column, which she knew from memory and gave to him so he could close his speech

with those words. a facebook viewer who writes, in clips from the 1960 campaign you rarely see mrs. kennedy. present at the democratic national convention in los angeles. because of the difficulties --ween her 1956 presidency pregnancy, did mrs. kennedy feel she could not bear losing another baby? >> she had a terrible record in her pregnancy. she had lost a baby to miscarriage in 1965, then as this person points out, she lost a stillborn little girl in 1956, right after that very hot, not air-conditioned -- so she was really just afraid to go. i think what this person is referring to is from april onward in 1960 she did tend to stay at home, though she did go with the future president, president of be, to a parade in

october 1960 through manhattan, the canyons of manhattan. she was definitely with child. the child would be john junior. a sense ofys had humor. bradley also has -- have a wife was with child. right after the election was one in hyannisport, he said to the two women, you can take the pillows out, we have one. -- won. >> what role did she play? we talked about -- at what point did john kennedy realized he had a political asset? paris inhey went to the spring of 1961 and a lot of people turned out both to see john kennedy, and also jackie, who had been a student in paris, was known to be a french ancestry, spoke french and knew french art and history.

that was when she first began to get enormous crowns. i know we will talk about this later on, the program in february 1962, the tour of the white house she worked so hard to restore. >> this was after he was in, she began to realize she could help with sustaining popularity. we will take a few calls. ida in west palm beach, you are on the air. >> thank you, i am enjoying this series very much. i was only five years old when the president was assassinated, so i don't really remember it, but i have read so many books about the president and mrs. kennedy, i'm great admirer of hers. one of the biggest images was her pink stained suit, and after she removed it -- she did not want to remove it before they returned to washington, as she said, she wanted the world to

see what had happened to him. what did become of that suit? was it destroyed or has it been preserved somewhere? and if so, where? and will it ever be shown to the public? i thank you again very much. >> as i understand, once she removed it, it was stored, i believe in her mother's attic. in georgetown. if people are familiar with the work by william manchester, they will see the last paragraph of that book talks about when he saw, after some years went by, the packaged dress, he could see the stains. if one didn't know the story of the pink suit, one would think that the person who wore it had met a terrible end. book, last line of the they might even wonder who had been to blame. >> as we understand, with the it is with the

archives, and caroline has made sure it will not appear to the 2103. before the year >> i don't think any of us will see it. >> unless there are changes in medical science. >> mary, from utah, you are on. >> this has been amazing and wonderful, one of the best things on television. thank you for that. my question is, jacqueline kennedy, such a great style icon and known for that, her privates maryr private secretary, gallagher, this was an issue with the president, the cost of her wardrobe. nothing was spared on her clothing. was she known as a frugal individual otherwise? thank you so much. >> not by her husband, if we

-- he were to say. but she spent an awful lot on clothing, and by the best information we have, this was actually joseph kennedy, who said, dress as you need to and send me the bills. he felt as a something that is very important about the presidency. in those days it turned out to be a great asset. >> it did become a bit of an issue in the 1960 campaign. they were big statements in the press that she must've spent $30,000 a year on her wardrobe. >> she put out a statement not spend $30,000 -- >> pat nixon -- >> the contrast was strong. it was a close election. then she wore a cloth coat to the inauguration instead of a fur.

>> then, a project you know very well. i will show you the book that came out of this. historic conversations on the life of john f. kennedy -- which you annotated in introduced, and work with caroline kennedy on. what is this project? >> when jackie kennedy, right in the wake of the assassination, she was reading all sorts of stories about her husband would not amount to much because it was only two years and 10 months. she was so determined to try to she him win the reputation thought he deserved, one of the things that was urged on her by the white house aide and historian -- was to record all the history. which they spoke on briefly at the university of virginia. when there are historical events that may not be recorded in letters, we go and interview a great figure in history and somehow try to fill in the gaps. she interviewed her at her house ,n georgetown about eight times

only a few months after the assassination, when her memories were fresh. the idea would be that she would speak freely, as it -- the historian of the 20th century. these were closed until 2011 when caroline felt they should be published. >> has any other first lady done a similar oral history? >> she was certainly the >> lady first. bird johnson. >> there is a wonderful book. by oxford university press. obtained all her oral history interviews as well. critique, her view of lyndon johnson and the role he played as vice president. jack had to do it as his running mate. he was a man with this enormous ego, raised, mocking jack in

every way. jack would say, you can never get an opinion out of him. he asked to go to luxembourg. for a president who is dying to give you a lot to do. take a trip to luxembourg. lyndon as vice president, he could just do anything. >> i want to read something from barbara's but before i get to -- barbara's book before we get to michael. you said -- underneath a veil of consequence, she tremendous -- concealed tremendous awareness. jackie had a very shrewd view of people, who the real people were and who the phonies were, and between people who are bright and those who are stupid. the papers were filled with her assessments of people.

did john f. kennedy use this to his advantage as a political partnership? >> i think so. i think that was her political contribution in addition to what we said about the imagery and mastery of television and that sort of thing. we will talk about the fact that she did not have a major impact on policy -- >> nor did she want one. >> he didn't talk to her about it very much. he might on occasion mentioned something, but he did not seek her out for device. -- advice. i think this is the case that if he was going to have any connection with her, at all, in terms of politics it would be when they went off on these trips or when they were coming back from political trips. she did go to 46 of the then-48 states with him in 1959 and 1960 when they were out with the rank and file. she was on the plane with him coming back saying, that person is a phony, that one is real, that one is smart, make sure you keep up with that one. >> you hear the people that she

criticizes, adlai stevenson, or the secretary of state. these are the people who tended not to do too well in the kennedy administration, like -- and the one she praised, like robert mcnamara, did very well. one thing to remember is how different these times were. texas on the 21st of november, 1963. since the inauguration, jackie kennedy had never been west of virginia. she did not travel domestically, she had small children and did not campaign, and thought that this was something to do in an election year. that is why going to texas meant so much. she said, jack, i will do anything to help you because this may be a close election in 1964. >> what do you learn about her savvy? listening to all these hours of tapes. >> you were mentioning what they said -- that someone had the impression of someone who was not involved in politics.

before the election in 1960, and the convention of 1960, she was asked by a reporter where the democratic convention should be held. she said acapulco. >> at one point she asked what the date was of the inauguration. >> she said these things, and she was not completely on top of it. it shows you how different the role was in those days. if she had given the image she was sitting here giving jack all ,his advice on the entourage that would have been something that would not have helped her very much in terms of society in those age. they were too hard edged, this is the way it would have been seen in 1960. >> catherine brown, the publisher of the washington post, to be honest, the kennedy

men, they were chauvinists. and she said, they just weren't interested in what women had to say about anything. >> when did the tapes come out with the biography? >> the tapes came out thanks to michael and caroline kennedy in 2012, -- 2011, excuse me. my book was published in 2004. much to my chagrin, the tapes were not available to write the book. >> so when you heard her in her own words, did it square with the view you developed in the powder -- biography? >> it did. at first i wish i had these but then i realized that this was going to add color and substance, to be sure, and it would have added michael's superb annotation of the oral history. but i found it actually followed the examples that we just gave, talking about mrs. kennedy. i thought as soon as i listened

to the oral history -- >> you see it has all the -- >> what it made me think about, in terms of the camelot image, was how she wanted to shake that image -- shake that image after her husband's death. to denigrate others around him sometimes raise him up. >> and also, just humanly. dissing lbj, it is why you always have to be skeptical of oral history. during the presidency, her relationship with lbj was quite good. johnson said she was the only person in the whole entourage except the president who treated him nicely. by spring of 1964, we are -- she was very close to robert kennedy, they were talking all the time. he was already on the outs with lbj and was talking to her about his shortcomings. you have to listen with that in mind. >> we are talking about a first-

person historical document. sheldon kuiper on twitter asks first ladies burned letters. did jackie do that? december 2,in the 19 63 phone call, you hear a little you motion in her voice. i now have more handwritten letters from you then -- than from jack. general did not write long, you mode of letters. >> he wrote a law as a youngster to his parents and siblings, but he was not a romantic, it would be safe to say, towards his wife. arell know her letters currently not available at the kennedy library. >> rachel is in portland, oregon. >> thank you so much for this program. i was wondering, how did jacqueline kennedy influence art and fashion in the united states? >> may i ask how old you are?

>> i am 12. >> what a great question. >> how much did you know about jacqueline kennedy before you started watching tonight? lot have been studying a about her recently. >> why is that? >> i like reading history very much. and i really enjoy studying about her. so i decided to study about her after finding a book at the library. >> great to have you participating tonight. thanks for making the effort to call in. we are going to talk about her influence. let me answer her question by showing a video, and then we will talk more about it. >> that was a good question. >> at her age, i wrote john f. kennedy was the person i most admire. you will end up with a phd in political science. it is a great life.

how theok at presidential library, how they help interpret jacqueline kennedy as a style icon. >> of course she is known for a style icon and admiration of her fashion sense. the first ensemble she wore as first lady was on inauguration coat and dress designed by cassini. it is a wonderful example of her simple elegance that became very popular. wore to adorn she the ensemble was a really tiffanyl ruby brooch by that jfk gave her to celebrate the birth of john junior. she was at the inaugural luncheon right after swearing- in. most famously, finishing the ensemble was the pill box hat, which she wore that day.

she wore it on the back of her head so her face would be seen. that actually set a fashion trend. the hat would normally be worn on the very top of the head. she had it pushed back to frame her face. displayed here in the storage boxes perhaps one of mrs. kennedy's best-known dresses. the dress she wore during her televised tour of the white house in february, 1962. visitors to our museum are quite surprised to realize it is red. the program was filmed in black- and-white and broadcast in black and white, but i like to surmise that she chose red for that program knowing it would be televised on valentine's day, 1962. let's go into the museum and look at other examples we have on display. she put a lot of thought into her wardrobe, when she was

representing the country both in the white house and while traveling abroad. she would think about what colors could mean something to the country. so for her visit to canada in may of 1961, the first state visit that the kennedys made as president and first lady, she wore this red suit, as a gesture of respect, for the canadian maple leaf and knowing that she would be greeted by the royal canadian mounted police, who famously where -- wear red, . this green coat and hat was one buddy lady -- was one by the first lady for her rival -- her arrival in bogotá, colombia. they were greeted by hundreds of thousands of people, particularly when mrs. kennedy would address the crowds in spanish. i really admire the thought that she put into her wardrobe. you think about the event that she was attending, or the

country she was visiting, was there a style of a particular color that she could wear that would mean something to her host? and she knew the advantages of wearing something that would make her stand out in a crowd. >> what do we know other than the fact that she loved clothes and looked great in them? how do we compare her fashion to influence the country, and advance the position of the united states abroad? >> she felt that it was best for the first lady to dress in the best of american fashion. and bring the best of american culture to the white house. she suffered a bit during the televised tour in 1962, suggesting that thewas no longer -- the united states was no longer a young, unformed country, but a country -- that language have been her

-- but worthy of being considered as a superpower. >> she goes from being a clothes horse to being a cold warrior. >> she understood have -- >> she helped to draw in, what we then called the third world countries. we were the new world and what better representation of the new world than the 33-year-old, young, fresh woman, with these youthful fashions. >> and the people in paris -- >> last week, eisenhower -- they set trends across the country and people were emulating her. and it was a couple of years before they were putting the bangs in their hair. in -- you could buy them in the drugstore. >> we were talking about the ike sundress. this is not something that she would wear. this was an upping of the level of the style.

i think that goes to cassini, who wrote to mrs. kennedy. she picked him because he was american, he had european ties and hollywood ties, but he said, i will create a wardrobe for you on the world stage. and indeed he did. want jack and myself to dress as if jack was president of france. >> how did the american public respond? >> by and large they loved it. every now and then she was a little too youthful. sometimes she would show up and -- in a bathing suit. sometimes you had conservatives who said, a first lady should not do that and if you think of the previous three first -- -- they were in their 60's when they left office. they were somewhat matronly and had grandchildren in some instances.

so she seemed like everybody's older sister or cousin rather than their maiden aunt or grandmother. >> let's take a call next, from judy, in newport news. >> love the series. we are really enjoying it. thank you so much. it seems to me i have heard her name pronounced as "jack- lean." is this true? >> she preferred to be called that -- she was usually called jackie, which she hated. and she says in the oral history -- both jack and i thought the combination of jack and jackie was quite unfortunate. >> anthony in chicago. >> how are you doing today? >> what is your question? >> we are going through this in my high school class as we speak. as you all know, there was a

if i'mith the zapruder, pronouncing his name right. we were looking at this in class, this was graphic and horrifying, of course, but i was wondering, when he was shot -- was jacqueline kennedy trying to jump out of the car in that video, or was this just trying , what are in high school year? >> i'm a junior. >> thank you for your call. >> the answer is we don't know why. she was asked about it in the warren commission. she said, i see myself climbing on the car but don't remember much. she was deeply in shock. >> would you show these accrued or film in a high school class? film in a high school class? >> i would not. like the explosion of the

challenger, i have not watched this, this is too painful and i would not show this to students. >> but this is widely available on the internet. >> is it helpful to talk about this in the classroom weather is a guided discussion? >> perhaps, but that would be a line i would have to draw. i would have to say to them, as i mentioned earlier, i remember that day so well as a seven- year-old, being taken up to search from cap -- church from catholic school to pray the rosary for the president, who had been wounded, and to be told at the end of the day he had died and to see the last prayer of the day for him. i would have to step back to my scholarly side, -- scholarly side and be human. >> what would you think about -- what would jackie think about the documentaries that are all over television? would she be happy the story is still being told? >> there is always the hazard in talking about a historical figure and what they may or may not have thought. she was so worried at the end of

1962 that jack would be forgotten. she was asking to her friends and others, please don't let them forget jack. i think it the very least, she would not approve of everything being shown, but at least it was a sign he was not being forgotten. far from it. >> and the camelot label has remained. >> the young caller talked about her influence on the arts. our next video, from the kennedy library, is of a trip she took to india and pakistan in early 1962 along with her sister. let's watch that and then talk about her international travel. and her influence on the arts. >> i am profoundly impressed with the reverence you have in pakistan for your art and your culture. my own country has pride in their traditions. , i know that is one

more thing that binds us together and which always will. >> the interesting thing -- we were talking about how so many images of the kennedy administration are in black and white. this is in color. how did that happen? >> this was the presidency and the president, who was aware of the importance of color photography. one of the last tapes, he is talking about plans for the 1964 democratic convention. he says, i want to have a motion picture about the administration in color, because it has so much impact. therecky thing for us is would have been the information agency and a bunch of photographers accompanying her on a trip like this, so we have a color film. >> how many international trips did she take? >> this was by herself with her sister, but not with the president. it would be viewed as unofficial

and we could talk about the canadian trip, her first trip out of the country, and in paris in june of 1961. they made several trips south of the border and went to puerto rico and colombia, and venezuela, and costa rica. where else have they gone? >> she felt it was not her duty outside of campaigns to travel domestically. >> she traveled by herself or with family for vacations. >> she knew how important it was for her to go with him. to vienna when khrushchev was meeting and bringing his wife. >> how important was this to policy ofthe foreign the administration? >> i think that for jackie to get the receptions like the kind that they did in paris in 1961, when they went with the and i to meet with khrushchev and got a reception.

the leader of the soviet union, nikita khrushchev, that was the time when the united states was trying to make the point that they are a arriving power and third world countries should align with us, not the soviet union. >> next is dennis in brooklyn. you are on the air. >> thank you, susan, and thank you for the program. i wanted to ask, we already mentioned that mrs. kennedy had a huge influence on the arts, style, and culture. i am curious ever since i saw "ulysses"d that campaign earlier during the campaign -- she was incredibly well read. was it her education or her upbringing that fueled her intelligence? >> it was both. she talked about, an autobiographical essay that she had done in 1951 -- she talked about her upbringing and said that she was a tomboy who like to go horseback riding, but she

also like to be by herself and sit in a room, reading little lord fauntleroy, and she loved to read, with the european cast -- to read books, especially with a european cast to them. she was an avid reader, much like her husband, but she tended to read literature and he would read history. she continued this and also had a superb background in education, both for her prep school years as well is going to years in vassar, then the sorbonne for junior year abroad in paris, and finishing up at george washington university. one of a handful of first ladies up to that time with a bachelors degree. >> sometimes it is forgotten, her influence on historic preservation. now, we take it as a given, if there is a beautiful historic building, there better be a good reason to take that down. or else you do not do it. 50 years ago, that was not the

case. the term urban renewal was used. if john kennedy in particular and jackie kennedy as first lady had not been the first lady in the 1960s -- the executive office building next to the white house would have been torn which dwight eisenhower was willing to do. he thought it was an eyesore. wouldf lafayette square have been torn down. backlley madison, i came and there was the white house all that up. beautiful lafayette square. >> it would have been replaced by federal office buildings of lot --time, looking roughly like a federal penitentiary and prison yard. that was the difference that she was there. this really helped the historic preservation -- >> in the book you quote aldrich -- who was she? >> her social secretary and schoolmate from ms. porter's

school in connecticut. >> she wrote that mrs. kennedy designed her mission of first lady along the following lines. do you remember this? >> preservation of family, entertaining with style and grace in the number one house in the world, the makeover of the white house itself and the raising of the cultural stature of this country. >> wasn't that amazing that she wrote that before going into the white house. she already had a firm sense -- family and children first. everyone would hope that would be the case but she already had a mission statement before she began as the first lady. >> our next clip is from an that was done about raising children in the white house. >> it is rather hard with children. there is so little privacy. i don't mind for myself -- but i

think it is hard with them, i wanted to take my daughter to the circus last week and decided, i just shouldn't because that would ruin it for her. i worked so hard to make a little ballet school a private thing we can do together and there were a number of photographers when we got there. so it is a little hard. >> do you think caroline, who is older than john junior, has she changed much from the attention she has gotten? >> no. she is still too little. but someday she's going to have to go to school, and if she is in the papers all the time that will affect her classmates and they will treat her differently. --t is what i am so anxious we were always treated the same. it is how other people treat her because they read about her. >> both of you have written about the school that they created in the white house. will you tell us the story of

how it was created, what the goal was, and how the public perceives it? >> we heard about that right here, she was worried about caroline, who when her father became president would have been three years old. going to an existing school and having people fawn over her, in washington, she thought it might be more normal if she created a school in the white house to learn. they hired teachers and had other kids around the same age, mostly the children of other members of the administration. that school ran for the length of the kennedy presidency. at the time of the assassination, one of the things the schoolwas to say can't go on at least until the end of the semester. >> there was a controversy because all the children were white. >> although there is a

photograph in the oral history that shows the class portrait of caroline and her schoolmates. there is one african-american student. i think he was the son of andrew hatcher, the assistant press secretary. he said to his father, the president came over and address you by name. it was, how did he know me? he must've been told, i was the one with the blue pen. height of at the concern over integration and only a few days after brown versus board. people were writing into the white house and saying, were there any, in those days they would say negro childen in the class and they had to say this was a private school, not a public school, which would be -- which would have to follow the brown versus board of education edict. >> we have more on the candy -- more on the kennedy administration.

first on the list, the creation of the peace corps, the advancement of the space program, creation of the space program. the cuban missile crisis and bay of pigs. the introduction of civil rights legislation, which john kennedy sent to congress. sending military advisers in vietnam. comment on anyto of those in particular and how they framed our view of the historical relevance of the administration? >> one way of evaluating a president is to say how much you engage with the controversial issues of the time. domestically, the biggest issue was civil rights. it took john kennedy two-and-a- sent thes, but he first big civil rights bill to congress saying public accommodations should be integrated. it took a lot of courage. domestically, the cold war, the cuban missile crisis.

probably some elements of what he did lead to the cuban missile crisis. the moment it happens, i want john kennedy as my president. did not result in the deaths of up to 48 million americans, which could have happened. that is as relevant today as it would have been at the time. thehe bay of pigs, usually term fiasco is associated with the bay of pigs. the utter failure to remove castro. yet because president kennedy went out and gave a press conference and said, i am the responsible officer of this government, i am the responsible one, his opinion ruble -- approval rating went up to 83%. >> and also, when the soviet missiles went into cuba, the joint chiefs said it -- you won't taking much of a risk, he knew to be skeptical of them in a way that he was not at the time. >> and he refashioned his entire administrative procedure by making these kinds of decisions. >> andrew, from south carolina. you are on.

>> thank you for having me on. i was wondering how -- what was her astrological sign and how did this shape your worldview? inshe was interested astrology. she was born on july 28, 1929. perhaps our color could tell us. i think that this is leo. my wife was born on the same day. so i have a bit of a leg up. who cameis the woman to see me in richmond who plotted out the astrological signs of the entire kennedy family? listening to jackie kennedy in the videos and the audio, regina wants to know, did jackie speak cadence in normal

conversations as on tv? not.e did some people who knew her commented on the fact that in public she spoke in a way that was very careful, sometimes a little bit stilted, and the explanation was she had in her mind the way a first lady should look and a first lady should act, and also the way a first lady should sound, which is different from the way she sounded off duty in the evenings. >> but her mother and sister also had that. >> this has a label, locust valley lockjaw, for the oyster bay area of long island. she said to me, they all spoke the same way. exactlyit, i think, is what michael said. the other part is the whispery

part of that. her dad had said this was a way to attract men. i always look at the photographs of mrs. kennedy in conversation with powerful men and foreign dignitaries, and oftentimes she is very close to them, with a strapless gown, just tucked up under their arms, and i have the sense that she is using that voice. said, even as a teenager, she would speak to a young man, she would just envelop you. you thought you were really brought into her orbit. clearly it worked. >> when she wrote letters, she wrote some of the best letters, romantic, almost overdoing it, saying how wonderful someone was, this was one of the best evenings of my life when maybe not have been. many people were so charmed by these that they felt they were much closer to her than they actually were. >> next is craig, in omaha.

>> thank you for your call. what is on your mind? >> i love your book, for starters. my question is, i own a 1962 kennedy board game. the question is, how did mrs. kennedy feel about her image being put out like that? >> a kennedy board game? >> i was given a deck of cards by a student of mine that had all of the kennedy family on the faces of the cards. i doubt she would be pleased with that, but she had to know that these things were happening, and she had approved a paper doll collection that would have shown caroline as a paper doll dressed up like a first lady. >> this was from the political advisers in the west wing, she barely tolerated things like this.

she thought they were other and -- she thought it was undignified. , "the famous family" the best-selling record of the time. von meter, imitating jfk. she was outraged that there would be an actress playing her. >> we are at the height of the "madman" era. the creation of medical campaigns from madison avenue. she had to recognize the political value of all of that. >> many of the pictures that we must treasure of jfk and those children, you may notice that there is no jackie. these were taken when she was oftentimes out of the country and not in a position to object when they said, get the photographers in. >> that is a nice segue. i want to talk to both the you about the relationship tween the press and the kennedy

administration, and how jacqueline kennedy interfaced with the press. when you look back at those times, there is so much written about the friendliness of the press corps. the relationship between the washington post editors, and the kennedy administration. looking through a historical lens, how does that look to you now? >> much more genteel in almost every respect about private lives. kennedy thought that the press was at his throat all the time, but compared to nowadays, it looks extremely different. the attitude was at the beginning of the administration she said -- your policy with the press should be giving out minimal information with maximum politeness. which pretty much summarized it. >> we show a picture of jacqueline, with ben bradley, and his arm is around her.

you look at how close that relationship was, and what is at stake. >> you may notice that the original picture showed a little bit more of her legs, and she -- she actually took a black pen and ink it a little it so it was more first lady-like. the other thing -- upstairs in the white house -- this is very different than how it may have been during the eisenhowers. to be the editor of "the washington post" and people know him from watergate and all the president's men. but he was also the editor of "newsweek" at the time. he had been the neighbor of the kennedys, along with his wife. they were good friends and they continue the friendship, as you can see. some of the beautiful videos

that were taken in the last weeks out of the northern virginia home right before the assassination are with the bradleys. they were brought in the afternoon the >> does it serve the public well? >> i'm sure not. >> the president did not talk to him for about six months. >> likewise, mrs. kennedy dropped him from her friendship when he wrote "conversations with kennedy" and she thought it was an invasion of privacy. they were thin skinned. >> robert from plano, texas, hi, robert. guest: how are you doing? i'm interested in the relationship between christine jackie onassis. i heard she was deceased and i want you to expound a little bit on their relationship. what was it like?

>> we aren't great source on that as historians. we have to stick with things we can talk about that with certainty. i don't know if you want to comment on this. >> i would say it's pretty obvious they had a fight over the onassis will and that mrs. kennedy at that time, mrs. onassis did fight to get more money from the family and that she was successful in doing that. so there's no love loss between the two of them, probably. >> one hour left in our two-hour look at jackie kennedy's life and her accomplishments and approach to the role of first lady. when when he talk about how the press interfaced and how they might have been gentler than two issues that were very much apart of jack kennedy's biography to talk about, first of all, his health. there are many things we know now about the severity of the back pain and addison's disease and the like. why did we not know more about it at the time?

>> he would not have been elected president in the 1960. there were rumors that he suffered from addison's disease, which he did. >> we should say rumors spread by lyndon johnson and others. >> and others, sure. there was an effort by his entourage to protect him and say he didn't suffer from addison's disease but not the classic kind. that was what was done. in recent years, we've gotten access to his medical records that showed he suffered from all sorts of things, bad stomach, bad back. all sorts of thing, many medications. you can look at this one way or another. you can say this is a terrible cover-up we should have known. probably we should have. at the same time, if you're trying to evaluate what the man was made of to go through all of that, his brother once said jack kennedy went through at least half of his days on this earth

in intense physical pain, probably true. and that is a test of someone who had great will. >> he had the last rites of the church said over him three or four times prior to dallas, 1963. >> i'd like for you to tell a story that you tell in your book about early in his marriage when he has experimental surgery on his back. she as a young wife tends to him. >> it's so difficult for him in the first few years because the back gets worse. we think first from a football injury in college and then slammed against the bulkhead of pt-109 in the midst of world war ii. between that and taking cortisone for a bad stomach, robert believes in consulting with doctors that caused a deterioration of the lumbar. so in the early part of their marriage in '54, he has this experimental fusion attempt to be made of the lumbar region and they place a metal plate in his spine and it just -- he suffers

a terrible, terrible infection that almost kills him. and then -- >> reduced immune response. >> from the addison's disease. then it won't heal. the wound won't heal. here's jacqueline kennedy, a newlywed, a young woman, she's with him once they get to palm beach from the hospital. she has to dress this gaping wound. he goes back under the knife a few months later. they remove the plate and have a slightly more successful surgery but he suffers periodic bouts of severe back pain for the rest of his life. >> also led her to be very skeptical of doctor, one of the most poignant things that in parkland hospital in dallas when he was there and the doctors were working on him after the shooting. the doctors and the nurses said you can't come in here, and she said i'm going to be there when he dies. the reason was when she went through this in 1954, she remembered how the doctors said you can't be near him even though she heard him calling for

her. >> ted in ft. lauderdale, florida. hi, ted, you're on. >> cute story -- jackie when she lived in manhattan. i believe they lived in an apartment building on fifth avenue. right next door in one of the apartment buildings was greta garbo. and jackie was a great greta garbo fan. and she would watch and when she'd see greta garbo on the street, i don't want to use the "stalk," because that's too cruel. but she would follow her going into a store. she would follow her in never speaking to her but looking at her and saying, oh, there's greta garbo. a person she really loved and admired. >> she actually knew greta garbo. >> she did? that's what i wanted to hear. >> 1963, greta garbo came for dinner and len billings had known greta garbo in europe,

spent some time with her. so j.f.k. played a joke on his schoolmate. that len is going to fawn all over greta garbo. greta comes in and has dinner and len billings begins to talk to greta and greta said, i've never met this man before in my life. >> those prep school pranksters. >> a quote in his book in unfinished life that i wanted to introduce the other topic with the relationship to the press. that is john kennedy's womanizing. this is one thing he wrote. kennedy had affairs with several women, including pamela turnure, jackie's press secretary, mary pinchot meier, ben bradley's sister-in-law, two white house secretaries playfully dubbed fiddle and fadle.

judith campbell exner and a full -- tall, slender beautiful intern. how much of this did the press know and not report? >> ben bradley, who i talked to at great length, insists he did not know, did not know about his own sister-in-law being involved with jfk. so in retrospect, there was a feeling this was better known or better documented than it may have been at the time. >> in your biography, you talk about the fact that his reputation as a womanizer was known when he was a senator in washington. she was well aware of this reputation as they were dating. what do we know about mrs. kennedy's knowledge about how much it continued after the marriage? and if so, how she felt about it? >> well, bless her heart, she kept her counsel on most of the time. she didn't write a memoir, she didn't go on oprah and tell all. >> or even tell some. >> that's a great credit to her. so we think she may have a

couple of times let out in anger, perhaps, in french, both instances, where she made a reference to someone who might be having an affair with her husband in private. one could only speculate what that was like in the marriage and what tension it must have brought to the marriage, especially the early marriage when he was having all of the medical problems and she was having trouble with her pregnancies as well. >> both -- a question for both of you. when you look back knowing now what we know about the tensions in their marriage and the challenges they faced, what was the relationship like? how strong a marriage did this seem? with your documentary evidence? >> i think it was a real relationship. and probably perhaps happiest at the very end. she certainly says the happiest years were in the white house. i think that was true. and there's a lot of evidence to

suggest after they lost a son, patrick, in august of 1963, they became a lot closer. for instance, you see them holding hands. >> at love field on the last day of his life in a way that you had not seen before. >> she would say that in the oral history, wouldn't she? she would say my husband didn't like to kiss babies or kiss me. he would not hold my hand or kiss me after the inauguration. you remember her touching very gently his cheek. and at the end she wanted to say oh, jack, what a day. that speaks volumes. and when they came out of the hospital after poor patrick passed away after two days, he is holding her hand and when they take the helicopter back to hyannis and they come down the steps, he's helping her

because she's gone through the cesarean section. a few weeks later, he's helping her down the steps and comes down herself. i had not seen that before. ben bradley says on september of '63, he thought he saw them closer than ever. when they came together for newport for their anniversary, he said he had never seen her greet him so warmly. >> that is for all of the reasons she was distraught and devastated about what happened on the 22nd of november, it was that much worse because if you assume there was new hope and warmth in this, you can imagine it's going through her head. >> i don't have a number. but she did for instance go to italy in the summer of 1962 with her sister and her daughter. >> i'm asking the question -- we've talked about international trips before. did she intentionally get out of washington? >> oh, yes. for instance, they rented an estate called glen aura, middleburg, virginia the first two years where she rode horses.

she thought for if children the more she could get them away from the white house and press attention, the better it would be on them and her. >> camelot in the lens jackie wanted jfk's presidency to be remembered was discuss. was this an effort on their part to hide their issues? >> i think not specifically. in some sense. but it was her effort to get people to look at that period and for years, it was successful. >> so her time in the white house, the things we should talk about which contributions, entertaining and the arts. what did she do on this level to introduce the public to aspects of american culture that perhaps they might not see before. >> you mentioned entertainment. first of all, i counted up 16 state dinners, only 1,032 days

in the white house. compared, for example, to george bush 43. they might have had a half dozen or so in the eight years, for a host of reasons, 9/11 security issues. laura bush didn't like to entertain that way. the kennedys loved it. they would have third world leaders come and they would draw them in. they would have the lively arms. >> people remark that mamie and ike would have fred wearing and the pennsylvanians. >> big band music. >> will rogers. >> military. >> where as the kennedy had ballet and public -- >> and opera. there was that. the fine arts, she had the fine arts committee bringing paintings, attracting paintings to the white house. that was my favorite story. the mona lisa coming to washington and to new york. and then the picture of her standing in front of it in that gorgeous strapless pink gown with one of her arm tucked up under the art minister of france is priceless. >> she saw things aesthetically and knew those things would be

important which we saw in the four days in november of 1963. but if you see the way a president nowadays sees a state visitor, that's all jackie kennedy is doing, between eisenhower and the predecessors. you have a state dinner and dining room, a big table in the shape of an e. the president, the first lady, the visitors would be at the long side of this. it was very formal and military looking. it was her idea that she should have round tables that encourage conversation and you should have a pageant on the south grounds perhaps with performers that harken back to the revolutionary period. even air force one, she had prepared with the design we see now adays, she knew that plane landing in the foreign airport looking the way it does is a tool of america's diplomacy. >> it was her idea to greet the visitors. make it a ceremony. otherwise it would be at union

station or international airport. >> jessica in irwin, pennsylvania. hi, jessica. >> thank you for this series. so much fun. i'm curious to know since she's so lovely, did she have a regular exercise regimen? and what was her diet like? >> she certainly walked a lot. her favorite sport was as most people know equestrian. she was very good. her mother spent a year, freshman year at street briar college in virginia. they're known for their equestrian program. >> that was subtle in there. >> thank you very much. she would go back after those years and she would train there. the coach said she was a very good equestrian. this started when she was just walking, she was in the saddle.

so that was her favorite way to get out and get fresh air. we the tell she watched her diet, ate carefully and exercised well. >> we're giving the good points, she was a smoker. >> she was a smoker. it was something that was very well hidden. sometimes she would smoke putting a cigarette in an ivory holder which would not have been the most helpful thing. she water skiied, the aforementioned album of the first family there's one skit where john kennedy -- john glenn is called to hyannis port for the mission and said get down to the dock and put on your water skis, jackie's waiting. >> she took caroline out and pulled her up on the skis with her. that generated letters, how dare you put your child in danger that way. >> we talked about the white house administration. the truman administration, they gutted the white house, the trumans, and completely restored

the framework. what specifically did jackie kennedy? >> what happened under harry truman was that for structural reasons as we saw two weeks ago in the excellent series, the white house had to be gutted in a steel superstructure put inside eight inches away from the outer walls. that's what's there now adays. it turned out the be so expensive there was not much money left to buy furniture. so harry truman made a great deal to furnish the whole ground floor in bulk with good prices, reproductions. jackie got there after the election of 1960 she feels aghast. she said it looked like a statler hotel which she did not mean as a compliment. it was not convincing reproductions. so this mother of two, with other things to think about, took on what was this enormous project of raising a huge amount

of money of art and artifacts. she wanted it to be in europe. -- the equivalent of europe. for foreign leaders to come to the white house and look like a hotel, threadbare and reproduction. it cast a bad light on the united states. if you liked the way the white house looks nowadays, we should thank jackie kennedy. >> we've been telling people all along that our partners are the folks for the white house historical association. we should say that. but it was created in this time. what was the story of the creation? what did it do then? >> it helped her to restore the white house and acquire artifacts. she was worried that when she was no longer first lady, the next first lady may not be so interested in history and may have a sister-in-law that ran a

curio shop somewhere who decided they would redecorate in perhaps the style of the late 1940s or something that was more contemporary. so she thought if there was an historical association, that would be one bullwart to prevent future first ladies from turning it backwards back to before the period in which it -- which it becomes a great museum. >> she set a precedent for the other two branches of government. quickly, congress establishes its own historical society and the supreme court did about ten years later. >> looking at the press conference of a white house buy that came out. it's still in print. since the debut in 1962, 4.5 million books of these books have been sold. >> they have. she remembered going -- >> you'd like to have a number like that, huh?

>> yes, i think maybe not by the government -- not for $1 apiece. >> yeah. >> the book is in a class of its own and should be. 1940, she went to the white house as a 10 or an 11-year-old girl. she was disappointed there was not a guide book. >> nothing to take away, she said. >> that was important. she knew this could generate income to help with the restoration. and that guidebook has been revised and revised and sold today. >> the curator at the time was writing the text. jackie didn't like the way it was coming out. so she went to her friend -- >> told him it was going a little slowly. >> she went to arthur schlesinger. she asked if he would write the text. she wrote the introduction. >> you referenced the televised tour of the white house when the white house was completed and it was a p.r. bonanza for the administration.

what were the circumstances of the tour? who televised it. how many people watched it? >> cbs televised it. >> it was shown on all networks. >> the two, maybe up to three by abc and coming on-line then. so she goes throughout the white house. now remember we're talking about 90% of the house holds having televisions. even though it's in black and white and we can't see her bright red dress on valentine's day, by today's standards, it's stilted. people fell in love with it. they think there were 56 million viewers. they think three out of four viewers watched it. one little boy wrote to her and said i really liked it. my dad was going to watch "maverick," a western at the time. i talked him to this. she received a fan letter from barbara bush, future first lady.

behind the iron curtain, 106 countries around the world. she won a special emmy for it. so it was a real high point. >> kennedy loved it. he couldn't believe what people was saying. he would have thought, i think he said this, here we have my wife, you know, raising money, buying art and artifacts and furniture. interesting to us. but to most americans, it will seem different from their way of living. it had exactly the opposite impact of what made people love this project that should take on -- >> he did the cameo. he comes in and does a little cold war vignette when he talked about how important the freedom of the united states is and how important the white house is. >> she thought it was one of the worst performances. one of their friends said, i thought it was so great, i cried when i watched jackie's performance. and jack said, yep, i cried when i saw my performance too. >> as you know you've been watching, very robust websites.

first ladies where all of the videos of the programs are archived but also the other videos and each first lady are accessible. each week we put a special item for you to see for the first lady being fie features. you can see her special emmy for the white house tour. i do want to mention the first lady's book, which you can find there. it's a guide to the biographies of every first lady. it's available at cost. if you're interested in a souvenir of the series or the history of the women we've been profiling all year, it's a link you can find it at $12.95, something along those lines. this is katie, she's watching us in san francisco. hi, katie. >> thanks for the program. i've been enjoying it every week. i wrote my thesis about jaclyn -- jacqueline kennedy and her

support of the fine arts. i would ask you to talk about her relationship and if the american public liked that relationship with him being a frenchman and how he helped with the white house restoration. >> i don't think he had a direct impact on the restoration. >> except taking her through versailles and showing her -- >> giving her a model to follow. but in bringing the mona lisa. michael might want to speak to this. i thought she was more admiring of him than she seemed to indicate in the oral history. she talks about the sadness that he had experienced when she met with him in 1961 in paris. he and his wife lost two sons in a tragic car accident. he was meeting with her even under those circumstances. she admired him for that. she admired his literature to be

sure and being frank fillic about all things. >> gary robertson wants to know, what would jackie say she's most proud of in her white house years after being first lady. >> she said in the oral history, i think, she said she was proud of the restoration. she probably wouldn't have used the word "proud" because she probably would have said one of the things i did i felt was most important. is the other thing gets almost no attention at the time. that is it's a very important egyptian historic site that was temples in danger of being eroded by the nile that she worked with congress and jfk to save and did -- and the result was that the egyptian government, nassar at the time, said all right, thank you, mrs. kennedy, we'll send something to the united states of ours. it was a temple she hoped would

be built in washington wound up put in the metropolitan museum in fifth avenue in new york. she saw it every morning. it was right outside her bedroom window at the apartment house she lived in. >> grand central station, too. >> later on. not as first lady. >> later in life, would she have been proud of those. she would have used those terms, no doubt. >> she drew a very thick line the things that happened when her husband was president. she felt things that happened before and after, they weren't. and some of the accounts of her destroying letters at the very end of her life with that in mind. >> who was jacqueline bouvier? we want to tell you about her early biography and the interest she developed as a young woman. we will return to the kennedy library to learn more about her early years

as a writer. >> from a young age, she liked to write. she would create poems as gifts to her parents on christmas and birthdays. she would write a poem and illustrate it. we have two early examples when she was 10 years old. while at the school in connecticut when she went to high school, she wrote a really wonderful essay called be kind and do your share. she said be kind and do your share, that's all there is to it. she goes on about how helping others in life is so important and how easy it is for us to say a kind word to someone and all of the difference it can make to this person. the scrapbook is called one special summer after graduating from school.

jackie and her sister lee were sent on a summer through europe. as a token of appreciation for that gift, they collaborated together on the scrapbook to give to their parents to let them know what their adventures were. and it's a combination of snapshots that they took. handwritten descriptions of the different places they visited, the people they met. wonderful and whimsical sketches done by jackie. in the fall of 1950, jaclyn bouvier entered vogue's very well known writing contest. the prix de pari contest. she won the contest. her two winning essays, one was a self-portrait, where she described herself as tall, 5'7", brown hair, a small face, and eyes so unfortunately far apart that it takes three weeks to have a pair of glasses made to have a bridge to fit over my nose. her example and her love of

writing and the power of wordsth she's asked in question three of the essay, who are three people in history you wish you knew. in addition to that, the russian ballet. in the early 1950s, jaclyn jacqueline bouvier was hired as the camera girl in "the washington times" on display here. she went through the streets of washington interviewing different people and asking questions and creating columns. one column is prophetic because she interviewed nixon and john f. kennedy who would be adversaries in the 1970s campaign. i think the example of the early

writings, and she did write throughout her life. but if her life had been different, she would have been a writer of some kind, maybe even professionally. and we know in her later life, the last part of her life, she was a prolific editor of books in new york city working on different authors with books of several topics. >> put the basic facts on the table. where was she born, to whom, and when? >> she was born in the hamptons in 1929 just before the stock market crashed in the summer of that year. her parents were john and janet bouvier. he had been an investment banker on wall street but lost his savings in the stock market crash. she continued to summer with grandfather bouvier called grandpa jack. they would write poetry and memorize poetry together. her mother was a strict disciplinarian but both sisters lee and jackie grow up in a broken home. their parents separate when

jackie is 7 and they divorce when she's 12 and it's a very bitter, acrimonious divorce because her father was a womanizer and somewhat of an alcoholic. >> his nickname was black jack? >> black jack, also the name of the horse in the funeral coincidentally in november of 1963. she had this insecure childhood. but the interesting thing is if you looked at her, didn't know any of this, you would have thought she had the most perfect early years. probably an heiress. her father was so short on money that when she was farmington in high school, she later said that sometimes she would worry they would not be able to pay the tuition at the end of the tournament. she might have to leave. so we were talking about the strength of will and where it came from. this is someone who live in a way that was much more elite than 99% of human beings but at

the same time, had its difficulties. >> father struggled with alcoholism. >> indeed. >> the extent of the wealth of her background of her family is important to understand the role she brought to it. where did the money come from? >> her father's family had been in finance. it was the family money that was lost. her money -- her father, her mother married an affluent man. he was not in the business of endowing his new wife's two children. when jackie took the job, she needed the salary. >> she liked to work. >> she was a worker. >> how did that affect her exposure to the city? how did she develop an affinity to this place? >> michael mentioned she made the first trip to the white house when she was preadolescent

about 11 or 12 years old. that is her introduction to washington, d.c. when her mother marries him, they're married at marywood at michigan state. they summer at newport. that's her introduction of the culture of washington. jackie kennedy would say, oh, her first trip at that time to the national art gallery when she fell in love with art and the wonderful feeling it gave her to view art and sculpture. >> this was a life of privilege. >> she lived on a huge estate. she was always the poor relation. i'm not making an argument that she lived in hardship given the way most of human kind does and did live.

but this is someone who felt there were challenges. >> she didn't know what her future would be but to marry well. which she did. >> how much of the attraction was that kennedy's family was very, very wealthy? >> it wasn't love at first sight. there wasn't chemistry immediately. when they were first introduced by the famous dinner party by the charlie bartels in 1951, there were no sparks. he seemed to want to ask her out. when he went out with her, there was another beau waiting for her, another male friend waiting for her. >> what was the age different?

>> he was born in 1917, she in 1929. 12 years. >> they met several times before? >> she first met him on a train. she wrote about it. she said this congressman with reddish brown hair i met on the train, i don't think she had ever heard of him. he by then was in congress. he had a book and a famous father ambassador to england, that was not her world. >> he didn't remember. >> next up. you're on the air. >> what were her favorite hobbies? what did she like to do in her spare time? >> all right, thank you. sounds like we have

another student watching us tonight. can you tell us about yourself? >> i'm 12 years old. >> doing wonderfully with 12-year-olds tonight. thank you for calling. >> i love history and watching channels and learning new things every time i turn on the tv. so i saw this channel and i decided to ask a question because i love history. >> i'm from chicago. >> how perfect to be 12 just the same age as jackie bouvier when she went to the white house? >> you asked about her hobbies. >> they put her in a saddle. she loved being in equestrian competitions.

her mother was a rider. she loved all things canine as well. you see her with dogs. she liked to show dogs in competition. lots of dogs around them oftentimes even in the white house though the president was allergic to cats, dogs, and horses. so and she loved the solitude of reading, writing, and poetry and art. she started younger than you doing those hobbies. >> introduction to john kennedy. what was mrs. kennedy's relationship with president kennedy's siblings and siblings in law? how did she get along with the rest of the kennedy family? >> at first, she found it hard. i'm particularly glad to have a japanese question here given the fact that caroline kennedy is about to go to tokyo for president obama's ambassador to japan. she was an introvert. she liked to read.

extrovert. the kennedys are gregarious and extroverted. took her a while to get used to that. >> her sister-in-laws didn't like the debutante way of speaking. they were out playing touch football and she'd prefer to read a book. >> this is talking about the life as a young wife of a senator. >> it might be like being a doctor's wife. a senator must be on call all the time. you don't know when he's on call. >> i suppose it is like being married to a doctor. they have such late hours, go

away at a moment's notice. >> you are alone a good deal of the time then? >> yes. >> are you active in committees? or is your job big enough taking care of jack? >> that's it. >> yeah, now jack -- >> you're extremely brighter in this shot. >> you do it for him? clumsy. does he tell you what's going on his trips when he comes back. >> at breakfast, he reads about seven papers and runs out the door. he is describing something to you. he's not reading the paper there. >> you talk to her sometimes. >> i do, i do. all the time.

>> and enjoy it, i'm sure. >> what should we take away from this and how she's describing the early days of her marriage? >> so fascinating, it's april of 1957, november of 1957, they had the first child, caroline. i guarantee you if they did that scene a year later, they would not be posing with a dog. >> was the relationship easy from the beginning or tough to get adjusted to many travels being on the road campaigning? >> it was very tough. we mentioned the medical problems that she had with the child bearing that he had with his back and other ailments. but he was gone so often. they also didn't have their own home. they tried hickory hill, which famously then became the robert f. kennedy homestead with his wife, ethel and 11 children living there. but jackie and jack had bought that. they thought to start their family. when she began to have the miscarriages and stillborn

children, it was too painful. so they moved back into town. >> one of the small facts i realized is that she brought to hickory hill, which is across the river to mclean, virginia. >> it was there. it had been owned by general mcclellan at the civil war. >> the mansion had been there. >> jack and jackie sold it to bobby when they realized they would not be able to fill it with children. she spent all her time in 1955 and 1956 decorating it only to lose the children and the nursery and special shelves for jack so he would haven't to bend over or reach too high. it became a sad symbol. she was so isolated there. if they were in georgetown when they first rented a home and were first married, she could go

back and forth to capitol hill and take him lunch. she was so completely isolated there they left. >> a facebook viewer wants to know if there were any known medical condition for all of her problem pregnancies. >> smoking could have been. she was a chain smoker. several packs a day. if that didn't lead to the problems of the actual pregnancies themselves, the lung conditions that john jr. and patrick who succumbed to it. and possibly the presidents, some of his medical conditions, perhaps even stds could have led to the problems with pregnancy. >> did jackie share john's drive to be president or was she comfortable as a senator's wife? >> she was comfortable as a senator's wife and was threatened by the notion of being first lady. i talked to fdr jr., a friend to

both of them. he said that jackie essentially panicked after jack won the presidency in 1960. she didn't expect it. she was terrified by the adverse effect on their marriage and family life for them to be president and for her to be first lady. and he said to fdr jr., please talk to jackie and convince her it's not going to be bad. >> we have less than 20 minutes left. a long post white house life to cover. i want to go back to the 1964 video clip, film clip in those days. this is a message though the nation about all of the condolences messages that came to the white house. let's watch. [video clip] >> i wanted to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to the hundreds of thousands of messages, nearly 800,000 or more, which my children and i received over the

past few weeks. the knowledge of the affection in which my husband was held by all of you has sustained me and the warmth of these tributes are something i will never forget. whenever i can bear to i read them. all his bright light gone from the world, all of you who have written to me know how much we all loved him and he retained that love in full measure. it is my greatest wish that all of these letters be acknowledged. they will be, but it will take a long time to do so. but i know you will understand. each and every message is to be treasured. not only for my children, but so future generations will know how much our country and people in other nations thought of him. your letters will be placed with his papers in the library to be erected in his memory along the charles river in boston, massachusetts.

>> she talked about the establishment of the library. can you talk about what she did to preserve and enhance the legacy of john kennedy's presidency? >> it did start with the library. jfk looked at what was going to be the site of his presidential library on the boston side of the charles across the river from most of harvard. she started to raise money for it and she began to think about who should be the architect. most people would have found an established architect like edward dorrel stone who did the kennedy center here in washington, known for doing government buildings and in my view surpassing ugliness and massiveness.

she employed one that was little known because she was thought he was much more in the spirit of j.f.k. who was young and was not well known himself. >> she also -- speaking of architect. she and the president had been friends with john carl weirneke. he had helped her with the saving of lafayette square and putting in low rise brick buildings that blended in. he designed the grave site. she worked hard with him on that as well.

>> two years ago, they looked for a piece of paper. she had not left a piece of paper saying it should be closed for 100 years which some people thought, but she did tend to err on the side of these things should be closed for a longer time rather than a shorter time. from my experience, political leaders and their families tend to overdo it and keeping things closed. think that things will be sensitive and damaging sometimes to be opened earlier than they will turn out to be. lbj would be horrified that his tapes were open given some of language and would be shocked to find that many of the conversations that he thinks

would have shown him as an uncouth back woodsman is what makes him cool. >> they've worked on the papers, receiving grants and donations to process them. they have released and they did for the 1962 to 2012 anniversary of the white house tour, they have begun to release mrs. kennedy's papers as they relate to the restoration. since i had to write that book without that available, arthur schlesinger's papers are a wonderful cache of mrs. kennedy's papers. he was a historian. >> the office was the first- called first ladies. >> in the east wing. >> dan watching, dan, what's your question. >> one comment and a quick

question. the comment didn't understand how important the zapruder film was shown it in high school. as a 40-year-old high school history teacher, students in high school associate this young president to being in their lives also as a young man. students did in that time. and it's been the image that he's such a young dynamic man. the videotape showed it at the library, what was the relationship with the nixons? either president nixon or pat nixon? and mrs. kennedy after she left the white house? thank you again for a great series. >> the relationship was better than one might think. jackie kennedy found it appalling she would have to return to the white house after 1963. she thought it would be much too painful. she told the secret service agents in washington drive in a way i will never have to see the white house. i'll start crying again, one exception.

1970-1971, her and j.f.k.'s portraits were painted by the artist. they were about to be displayed in the nixon white house. the nixons said why don't you come down and see them quietly. she felt she owed it to jfk to do that. she brought her children, it was a totally off of the record visit they had dinner and she wrote to president nixon afterwards, she said a moment that i always dreaded, meaning returning to the white house, turned out to be one of the most important days i've ever spent with my children. so she was grateful to nixon for that. in later years she wasn't happy with nixon, particularly in watergate. a number of things that nixon tried to damage the reputation of kennedy. >> in 1968, she saw robert kennedy assassinated. the two were close.

>> they were. thank goodness she wasn't in los angeles. >> yeah. >> but to have to go through that yet again. yes, they had been close. >> how concerned was she about security for herself and her children after -- >> terribly concerned after that. she supposedly said if they're killing kennedys, my children could be next. financial and physical security became so important to her. that was probably part of the attraction to mr. onassis. >> four months after rfk's death, she married. >> what happened to the public's perception? >> she was pulled off of the pedestal. people were outraged. many were outraged she would marry anyone at all rather than be an eternal widow, but particularly to marry someone who was this much older, not an american, and who was under some suspicion by the united states government, some of the financial activities.

>> do we know that it was a happy relationship? >> i think of something her sister said not too many years ago about someone saying how could she have been attracted to such a man after being married to jack kennedy. her sister said, by the way, who had also had a romance with him prior to her sisters. >> meaning onassis? >> yes, not her brother-in-law. and she said he was quite charismatic. she said the way he moved and the way he looked and he may not have been a typical gq representation of a beautiful attractive man, but she was. jackie liked all things greek, she liked greek mythology and poetry. she found great comfort in the tragic poets of greece that she introduced brother-in-law robert

to. so we can't say she wasn't attracted to him at all. but certainly the money and the physical security. he had his own island, scorpios. >> how long did it last? >> from '68 when he died in 1975. they were somewhat estranged. >> she would say that the marriage was quite good until january of '73 when aristotle onassis's son died in an accident and he blamed her. >> did she come back to new york city? >> she did. something many people did not expect. she decided to go to work and get a real job. she became an editor and then at double day. this was not someone who was just there for show business and acquiring bookings. she actually edited with great intensity. her authors were hugely loyal to her. so the last years of her life, she was happier than she'd often been in life. she had a relationship with a fine man, maurice, who i think this was a relationship with

equals. this is different from her second marriage and perhaps her first. >> how close did she remain with her two children at this time? >> always very close with them. always so proud of them. edward's eulogy, she said when she spoke of them, her face would light up. >> her husband meeting, close to the prime minister, harold mcmillen. when she was in her deepest grief, she wrote mcmillen and said if i raise my children well, that will be my vengeance against the world. she felt she had achieved that vengeance. >> rose kennedy lived a very, very long life. bo hamlin wants to know how did jackie get along with rose kennedy. >> i'm going the take that. >> this is the question. >> it is. i just published a biography of rose kennedy.

>> fine one, too. >> this past summer. they got along to begin with. she wrote to her mother-in-law and said dear mrs. kennedy, thank you so much for all of your good advice. rose kennedy liked to mete out plenty of advice. one of her favorite pieces she said stand at an angle when one is having a photograph taken because it makes one look slimmer. jackie said thank you, mrs. kennedy, for teaching me that lesson. she wrote kindly to her. after the assassination, there were issues of whether jackie would come back for the opening and the dedication for the kennedy center. she finally decided she couldn't. she couldn't face that. she couldn't face being that she

said the widow kennedy for the rest of her life. she wanted to be with her children. it was just too painful. rose filled in with her. but you can see there was a little bit of tension but rose really appreciated that she would be invited often to be with mrs. kennedy and john and caroline. >> she got along with mr. onassis. >> and when people were giving her trouble for marrying mr. onassis, rose stuck up for her and said jack would have wanted her to be happy. >> you describe her as being homeless after the death of president kennedy and wanted to know why the family didn't bring her more support, bring her to the fold, give her a place to live. >> she had money. she had $150,000 from the trusts coming her way. bobby pitched in $50,000.

>> this is mid '60s. >> times that times ten for today's dollars. by her standards, perhaps it wasn't enough. in terms of the physical place to live, she said in the famous interview with theodore white, the camelot interview the week after the assassination said she wanted to live with my children in the places i lived with jack. georgetown and on the cape. she could have gone to the cape. she went to georgetown. avril larriman loaned his home and she bought a home across the street. it was inundated with tourist buses, tourists, photographers, peeping into her windows and coming up on the porch. she couldn't bear it. after a relative few months, she took off for new york and spent the rest of her time there. >> did mrs. kennedy have to testify for the warren commission? >> she did. she did.

june of 1964, earl warren and one or two others came to her parlor in georgetown and asked her about the motorcade. it was brief, i think it was less than a half an hour, but she did have to testify. that's on the record. some of her physical description of wounding and kept for sometime because it was too graphic. >> other questions, did she talk about what her own theories were? the theories continue to this day about the lone assassin, lee harvey oswald or a larger conspiracy? has she espoused an opinion? >> no, again, she kept her counsel in all things. >> dawn from colorado springs. >> hi. very, very grateful for your show. "the kennedys" were very inspiring to me. but my question is how important

was jackie's catholic faith to her. >> both kennedys were catholics? how important was it? >> i think she would -- barbara will -- i'll just begin on this. she certainly considered herself catholic throughout her life. she had trouble when she remarried a divorced man outside of the faith, but although was supported in doing that to some extent by the family cardinal. i think one of the toughest things i find, in understanding public figures, two things, do you ever get to the real truth of someone's marriage if they're married? number two, do you get to the well -- to the bottom of what their religion feeling was? sometimes presidents and first ladies exaggerate that. sometimes there's more than that on the surface.

>> michael pointed out through the oral history that she was having her doubts about her faith in those months at the -- >> she said i believe at this moment that god is an unjust god. >> exactly. >> she talks about her husband, jack, praying at night. maybe a superstition. >> she said he did it in case there was a god. >> but she also apparently spoke to a father confessor at georgetown university and mentioned she was having suicidal feelings about the assassination but decided that would not be the way to go. >> and with children? >> and with children. >> so we're going to close with jaclyn kennedy's years one last time. >> once in the white house, i felt i could get out. i can't tell you how oppressive with the strain of the white house can be.

i could go out -- jack would see it was getting me down. he would send me away. he would say why don't you go to new york, go see your sister in italy, then he sent me to greece which was for a sad reason this year. but he thought i was getting depressed after losing patrick. he would say, i can go out, i can go to the restaurant in new york and walk down a street and look at an antique shot or go to a nightclub. i used to think -- inused to worry about going into the white house. but then you find out that it was really the happiest time in my life. but then you find out that it was really the happiest time in my life. >> i used to worry but then i find out they were the happiest years of my life. >> i think that was january. i think here's a case she had a bigger impact as first lady in